Climate change: soil can make a difference!

Year: 
2015

Climate change: soil can make a difference! Climate is a principle factor of soil development. Climate drives major soil-forming processes including transformation, accumulation and transport of substances that result in the diversity of soil types on the Earth. Soil is one of the key life support systems responsible for the performance of major ecological functions such as biomass production in agriculture and forestry, storing, fi ltering and transforming nutrients, substances and water, biodiversity (e.g. habitats, species and genes), physical and cultural environment for humans and human activities, source of raw materials, etc. The change of climate alters all processes in soil which may have serious consequences for the both environment and society. Therefore, climate-soil relationship is one of the priority topics in soil science. This booklet presents an overview of the various activities which are being carried out by the Soil Action or to which the basic soil data were provided. In addition, new methods to verify the changes of the organic carbon and estimate the potentials of carbon change in the EU mineral soils are introduced. The overall goal of the document is to provide examples that clearly illustrate that soil is an important issue in climate change. Policies and strategies supporting the effective management of soil can really make a difference for the mitigation of climate change. Vladimir Stolbovoy, Brechje Maréchal, Arwyn Jones, Ezio Rusco and Luca Montanarella, 2008. Conference on ‘Climate change - can soil make a difference?’ , 12th June 2008 , Centre Borschette, Brussels Download report: (Size: 13 MB) Preview FrontPage : Last Update: 30/06/2009